Our participatory democracy should not limit the number of parties, as they represent different shades of opinion that makes our representation real
The concept of proportional representation (PR) was crystallised when the mixed parallel electoral system with 60 per cent seats for PR and 40 per cent seats for First Past-the Post (FPtP) segments was enshrined in the Interim Constitution for holding the Constitutional Assembly (CA) election, as there had been no provision of thresholds in our experiments with the FPtP in the 1959, 1991, 1994 and 1996 general elections. As a result, 25 parties out of 54 which contested the election acquired their shares. However, their number increased in the second CA by 30 against 122 parties that contested the election.
However, the changed political representations in the second CA, which adopted the constitution in 2015, imposed a 3 per cent threshold for the House of Representatives (HoR) and 1.5 per cent for Provincial Assemblies. This provision resulted in the reduction of parties entitled for PR seats in the first HoR to five in the 2017 general election, which, however, increased to seven in the 2022 election.
The provision of thresholds is an integral part of any electoral system, as every election process provides representation for which the minimum level of support by way of votes cast for a party or a candidate is needed. Even a plurality/majority system requires a threshold of representation to complete the process of getting representation. For example, in the plurality system (FPtP), maxim votes are required to acquire representation in the election. In a majoritarian system, majority votes are required to achieve representation.
Thresholds are of two kinds: formal and natural. The first can also be called legal or formal, as these can be imposed by legislation, whereas the second can be called effective or natural, as these are based on a mathematical property of the electoral system.
Thresholds vary from 0.67 per cent to 10 per cent, according to countries. Thresholds are important for a PR system, as parties that fail to secure less than the threshold number of votes are ineligible for seats from the PR lists. Though thresholds limit the electoral representation of extremist groups and very small parties, it leads to a waste of precious votes which voters cast. Keeping the problem of vote wastage, some countries have developed a system which permits getting a PR share if a party gets one or two of its candidates elected under the FPtP segment. It seems that these countries value the significance of representation.
Democracy, a system of governance by duly elected representatives, makes representation its cornerstone of democracy, which is achieved through an electoral system. It seems the protagonists of raising the threshold percentage have not critically studied the effectiveness of threshold in a closed list PR system. They seem to overlook the ratio of PR and FPtP segments, which counts much. Had we adopted the electoral system of full PR system for all 275 seats of the HoR, it could have been comparatively more effective.
The ratios of these two segments in the mixed parallel electoral system practised in nine countries vary from PR 29 per cent to 71 per cent FPtP seats in Albania to PR 54 per cent to 46 per cent FPtP in Hungary. However, after doing away with the ratio of 60-40 per cent adopted for the CA elections, we now have 40 per cent seats under the PR, reducing the importance of this segment and have enhanced the FPtP ratio to 60 per cent to make it prominent, as it is easier to win the election under it.
Data show that parties got less votes in the PR category than in the FPtP. In the first CA election, the NC garnered 22.69 lakh PR votes and 23.48 lakh FPtP votes. The UML got 21.83 PR votes and 22.29 lakh FPtP votes. The Maoists got 31.44 lakh PR votes and 31.45 lakh FPtP votes. The trend was repeated in the second CA election, too.
The trend continued in the first HoR election of 2017. It happens so because under the FPtP, an individual candidate exerts maximum efforts to get maximum votes by any means, whereas hardly any individual efforts are found in a closed PR list system. It is because in the PR segment the final nominations of candidates are uncertain. In the closed list PR, priority can be altered to suit the entitlements of candidates under different clusters. The process has become more complex as there are different clusters in this segment.
Significantly, this segment has become a compensatory segment for the representation of women to make up for the shortfall of their representations in the FPtP segment. The role of independent candidates has to be considered, which limit the victory of political parties. Furthermore, there are parties whose popular leaders win an election under the FPtP segment with no entitlement for PR seats as in the case of the Unified Socialist party in the 2022 election.
Without sufficient studies, our leaders believe that political instability can be overcome only by limiting the presence of parties in the HoR by reducing the number of fringe parties, which are entitled for their proportional shares of representation. They do not introspect that the instability lies in their leaders' insatiable lust for power, especially for the Prime Minister's post. History shows that from the 1990 people's movement to the 2006 movement, instability was invited by the top leaders to acquire state power.
Nepal is a plural society with 142 castes and communities. It has 125 mother tongues and 10 religions. Our participatory democracy should not limit the number of parties, as they represent different shades of opinion that makes our representation real. If threshold is enhanced it will lead to a waste of valid votes considerably that will limit representation in the HoR.
Mishra is former election commissioner
